Commercial rant time...

[Yorick]

I want these back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwVnfcCZKnk
(In case the link dies, it's an ad for "Toilet Duck")

 

[BornToWemble]

Well as for the sleep medication, sometimes the side effects are really rare or they're not quite what you would think.

I don't know which sleep aid commercials you mean, but their are kinds of normal hallucinations you might see or hear when falling asleep. It mostly happens with people who have narcolepsy or who are sleep deprived. The sleep meds could most likely mean that. Anyone who needs sleep badly could hallucinate anyway. It's not quite the same as sitting there and all of a sudden Kermit the Frog is there singing a song about drawing Hitler sexy and in drag (Which kinda of happened to my friend when she had a fever and was trying to sleep)

Plus their are some cases where the benefits outweigh the small risk that might occur. They were talking about putting me on sleep meds for my fibromyalgia because it's a vicious cycle that people with chronic pain get trapped in. You're in pain, you can't sleep. You don't sleep, your pain gets worse. Your pain gets worse, you can't sleep. And you just keep getting worse and worse and worse. I don't think I'll be going on them because not only do I have a seizure disorder, that isn't really treating the pain problem in the way I feel comfortable with. Besides it was also suggested to me that I should have a sleep study done and be tested for narcolepsy. I don't feel like those two things mix.

Besides it's impossible to tell if you'll have a side effect or how your body will react. You may not have a side effect but you may react poorly in a different way. I was on muscle relaxants, again for the fibro, twice. Once was take for 2 weeks before they knew it was fibro (it was for strains) and the second was as needed. Both times I had mood changes but not what with was consistent of the side effects. I got extremely hostile. The first one it was easy for me to stop taking because it just plain did nothing.

The second time they worked, they helped me sleep. They knocked me out right away. I would wake up aching but not in an unbearable way. So I kept taking them. I got hostile again. This time I got worse. Before I just felt aggressive, but the second time I got aggressive. I screamed at people, I did things totally out of character for me, I was a monster to a lot of people and destroyed at least one friendship, though we hadn't been close for a while, I don't think it was inrepairable until that. Though he has been understanding I don't feel comfortable talking to him anymore after what I did, he's too forgiving.

It even got to the point where I punched out my laptop screen because Norton was keeping World of Warcraft from updating...and I am NOT a violent person nor am I addicted to WOW. Then one time I got up only shortly after going to bed and taking a pill..and I think I hallucinated. I don't remember what because it was also trashing my memory.

I also agree with pharmaceutical commercials even though meds are over prescribed. I think it helps take away stigma from a lot of conditions and a lot of countries need a dose of that. There was a girl I knew and was sort of becoming friends with from a culture that I did not know at the time had a big taboo about being mentally ill... and she outright mocked a girl whose sister committed suicide to her face and basically said it was good that she killed herself and that her mother was the one that discovered her dead daughter in their blood covered bathroom. I've sadly seen a lot more people from the culture be the same and even more rational thinking people from he same culture who are actually educated about mental illness admit that the view of it is disgusting.

Not saying we don't have the same here, but I've never quite seen it on that same level, at least not as much from supposedly mature adults.

Sorry for the long reply.

 

[Drtooth]

Ah yes, I see. There are people who DO indeed need this stuff. My rant is mainly because the US is the only country that actually does advertise drugs on television, and for everyone one that does indeed need the medication, there are a lot of those who think it would be a quick fix solution. Plus there's also the whole withholding the patent so there can't be any generic, cheaper versions of those drugs and price gouging and all that that bugs me.

But you did bring up the part we keep forgetting. These ARE useful and they often do outweigh the risks.

 

[BornToWemble]

Ah yes, I see. There are people who DO indeed need this stuff. My rant is mainly because the US is the only country that actually does advertise drugs on television, and for everyone one that does indeed need the medication, there are a lot of those who think it would be a quick fix solution. Plus there's also the whole withholding the patent so there can't be any generic, cheaper versions of those drugs and price gouging and all that that bugs me.

But you did bring up the part we keep forgetting. These ARE useful and they often do outweigh the risks.

Oh I know all about that price-gouging and all that. It hasn't happened to me often so I don't think about it much. I'm lucky to live in MA so I have my state-health care, but right now my insurance is denying me a medication for my Fibromyalgia because it's expensive, even with the generic. They also apparently like people to try opiate regimes before all this stuff. Plus I'm sure my insurance company hates me because I'm so **** expensive. I've cost them over 10,000 dollars this year alone, I'm sure.

But yeah all the things people are saying about them ARE very valid, but sometimes some of the stuff isn't quite what it seems at first glance.

 

[BornToWemble]

People complaining about "stupid men" commercials, I see that trend is coming back in a slightly different way: a homely wife married to a loser husband who can barely speak in complete sentences... like the wife trying to get her husband to eat more fiber, but he says it makes him "saaaaad", or the wife inquiring about the cheese spread her husband bought while he's so wrapped up in his laptop his replies are barely five words long.

I hate commercials that are sexist towards men, because I see so many women who are like that and it drives me NUTS.

I also hated those Midol commercials with the actors playing female stand-up comics dissing their men and pretty much making fun of how horrible women can get during their periods and that it's perfectly okay to take that out on your lover even when they're trying to do something to make you feel better... Because apparently verbal domestic abuse only counts when it's against women.

But the commercials for milk saying they helped PMS symptoms got so much flack.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, I can SORT OF relate to those kind of observational gags... I mean, I could tell you stories about what my older sister is like when it's theat time of the month... but I won't...

 

[Sgt Floyd]

I do believe there is truth to the milk thing XD

I get cravings for milk and get reeeaaaallly testy if we don't have any

(not that it has anything to do with the discussion)

 

[D'Snowth]

I remember here a while back suddenly being attacked in this thread for no reason regarding my comments of how sexually-related camera shots are forced into commercials to ensure the products will sell, I see now it's happening again with the commercial for Sophia Vergara's new clothing line, where the camera lingers on her breasts, before she snaps her fingers at the camera, and motions that her face is up there, not down there.

 

[BornToWemble]

Well, I can SORT OF relate to those kind of observational gags... I mean, I could tell you stories about what my older sister is like when it's theat time of the month... but I won't...

Speaking as a woman, I do see a lot of women who use it as an excuse to be a ***** once a month and not care about being hurtful. I have a mood disorder associated with PMS called PMDD and it makes all those typical symptoms really severe as well as ones not associated with normal PMS, like depression and anxiety (I have anxiety anyway but it gets worse then). I really hate getting like that and to see other women using normal PMS as a 'fun' excuse to get what they want and be a tyrant really ticks me off. Plus I see too much male bashing in the name of 'feminism'. (Don't take that as my saying feminism is bologna, it's that male bashing like that isn't really feminism, it's sexism and a lot of women I've know don't realize it or care.)

I don't doubt the milk thing working, but their complaint was that in the commercial there was a bunch of men running to the store and buying all the milk they could.

 

[D'Snowth]

Speaking as a woman, I do see a lot of women who use it as an excuse to be a ***** once a month and not care about being hurtful.

Well, it's not like she uses as an excuse or anything... actually, I mean, that's just the way she is, she's that stereotypical over-dramatic older sister you see on TV a lot, who has so much drama going on her life, and yet is completely oblivious to it... I mean, seriously, her home is a hassle, yet she claims she lives a very peaceful life.

I mean, as a man, I wouldn't even begin to imagine how horrible that time of the month is, I've just witnessed it whenever it happens to others, again, like my older sister, and when that happens, some of what I've seen can make Oscar the Grouch look like Mr. Nice Guy.